


Left

by begoodwhale



Category: Discworld
Genre: Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/begoodwhale/pseuds/begoodwhale
Summary: You are not lost in Ankh-Morpork. Then again, perhaps you are. 
(Or: the tall man in the dark cloak knows exactly where you're meant to be going. It's where everyone goes, in the end.)





	

You go into the City because you think it a good idea. You are wrong. You think you should leave, but you can't seem to find your way out. You turn left, and then you turn left again. You should be going in a circle, but you are getting progressively more lost. You should be starving to death, but you have eaten a meat pie.

You have eaten a series of meat pies. What kind of meat? From where? By what means did you obtain it? No one wants to know. No one needs to know. It has been three days or three weeks since you have eaten anything else, and it does not matter.

You meet a man in a Wizzard hat. He has a Luggage. You think it may have eaten your porter. You are not sure. You think it unwise to ask.

You meet a tall man in a dark cloak. You ask him for directions. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING, he says, IT IS WHERE YOU ALL GO, IN THE END. You are puzzled. You thank him anyway. You do not think you know where you are going. You know that you have eaten three meat pies and two sausage-in-buns since you last turned left. You assume that he means that you are going to turn left again. He is not wrong.

You eat another meat pie and turn left. The tall man in the dark cloak helps the sausage-in-bun vendor out of the roadway as you round the corner, and you put it out of your mind. Perhaps you should not. Perhaps you should turn left again. You somehow have a meat pie. You must not think about it. You must eat another meat pie.

You find a place where you may send a message. The lights flash and flicker and your message comes back. You try to send it again, and again it is returned. It is not a long message, and yet it is never delivered - it only comes back, again and again. You begin to think that you should stop, but you cannot. It is an obsession. It repeats until you cannot tell when you have sent it and when it has been returned; three words: GNU TERRY PRATCHETT. You cannot tell where it begins and where it ends, only that it is time to turn left again.

You are tired of turning left. You momentarily consider staging a revolt. You go to raise your fist and feel a chill. Lord Vetinari is behind you. Lord Vetinari is always behind you, even when he is in front of you. Perhaps, it seems, especially when he is in front of you. You try to block the sight of him with a meat pie, but you have eaten too much of it. You buy another. It looks like Lord Vetinari in profile. You cannot eat it. You must eat it. It is a meat pie.

You cannot leave. You may never leave. You think you have turned left, but you have not eaten a meat pie for three turns. Perhaps you are confused. The tall man is standing at the end of the road. You think you may ask him for directions, but do not. You do trip on a loose cobble as you greet him. HELLO AGAIN, he says. You dust yourself off as the sausage-in-bun vendor looks on.

You think you will turn right, this time. You know where you are going. It is where you are all going, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the random stories Typed up in my rambling notes on my phone, as usual.


End file.
